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Posts Tagged "food"
Anyone been to Fleisher’s in Kingston, NY? Their meats are to die for. We make a point to stop there whenever we’re in the area, and never fail to come back with gorgeous steaks. This time we splurged and asked for marrow bones, breakfast sausages, and all-beef hot dogs, too. It goes without saying that I’ve filled my protein quota for at least the next month.
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One of my favorite meals of all time is a pasta dish made with linguine and freshly dug manila clams from Desolation Sound. We made it one night while boating in the area last week… so delicious!
1lb. dried italian linguine saute the sliced garlic in olive oil until tender, over low heat, so as not to brown. add white wine, chili flakes and simmer 5 minutes over low heat. serves 4 to 6.
A couple of weeks ago, my guy treated me to a dinner that Outstanding In The Field held in the Seattle area on this year’s nationwide tour. Local chef, Matt Dillon and The Corson Building staff served a gorgeous meal at Oxbow Farm, paired perfectly with Rhone varietals from Syncline, a winery located in Southern Washington that biodynamically farms and harvests its vines. We were given a tour of the grounds the farm before we were ushered to a long table in the middle of vegetable fields for dinner, where we shared food and life stories with our neighbors, enjoying every bit of what was set down in front of us while the sun set across the valley.
Matt Dillon is also associated with Sitka & Spruce (newly reopened in The Melrose Market), as well as Nettletown (yum!), and Bar Ferd’nand (superb!). Oxbow Farm is getting ready to hold educational classes for students this fall. They are also a great resource for weekly CSA boxes delivered to your doorstep! Contact them for more information!
Can you believe that I was in Paris for almost ten days, and the only photo of any food I ate during my trip was of an ice cream cone? Granted, it ranked at the top of a long list that I keep entitled Best Ice Cream I’ve Ever Had, but I was disappointed in myself when I scrolled through the pictures on my camera during the flight home and all I saw were monuments and landscapes. Fortunately, I kept a detailed account of the restaurants, bars, and shops we visited which I have prepared for you to use whenever you please, and especially the next time you visit The City of Light. …Listed by neighborhood… Le Marais:
Saint-Germain de Pres: Montmartre: Grand Palais:
If you are interested in seeing dance, try Theatre de la Bastille or Menagerie de Verre, and if you’re up for it, pack a picnic and head out to Versailles one day where you can rent a bicycle and tour the expansive gardens. If you’re looking for a friend in Paris, get a hold of Morgane, our French Adventurer for Life. Remember to send The Adventure School a postcard! Bon voyage!
As I mentioned early this week, I am a fountain of knowledge about all things adventure and possibly all things BRUNCH WEDDING. So, folks, if you’ve ever wondered about . . . THE BENEFITS OF BRUNCH, . . . let me fill you in. Today’s wedding is a spectacular (and expensive) event and many of the brides we work with seem sad to see the fun end. They’ve usually been planning for the big day for a year (or more!) and it goes by quickly. A ‘day-after’ brunch is an awesome time to connect even more with loved ones; especially out-of-towners who have journeyed to the wedding. It is a wonderful idea to surround yourself with love during your first day as a married couple. 1. Cheaper: Brunch food is just cheaper, I think this is because we live in a dinner-archy. Dinner is considered better, more awesome and more important and is therefore more expensive. But who cares? Take advantage of the dinner-centric culture, Go Big and Go Brunch! (and maybe Go Home to do it, or at least in the backyard of your fanciest friends house, or better yet, the home of an older, wiser family friend who loves to garden)! 2. Unexpected: Your friends will love you if your brunch is a ‘day-after’ thing. Good friends love to re-hash everything and if they want to squeeze in as much time as possible with the far-flung old buddies from camp, from high school, college or whatever, a post-wedding brunch is an unbeatable choice! 3. Not so much drinking: No one will get embarrassingly drunk on mimosas or bloodies the way they might on the open bar vodka sodas. Just sayin’, could be good for people who are not as interested in an all night wedding turned frat party. 4. Diversifies décor options: Some folks might want to ditch nighttime rented elegance for brunch in favor of sentimental, folksy or bright and cheery handmade décor. A bunch of family quilts and dishes from home is totally awesome and expressive of the couples’ lifestyles and individuality; less inhibiting than the traditional evening wedding. 5. Better for including kids: Little children can be a more active part of the festivities as it is not past their bedtime and perhaps the brunch reception will be a less formal affair or the ‘day-after’ brunch may be a fun way to hang out with kids who were asleep or with the babysitter during the wedding the night before. 6. Booking entertainment could be cheaper too: Feel free to wheel and deal with your favorite bands! They probably aren’t too busy and a day-time setting could call for smaller groups. An accordion duo in the park or the backyard during brunch would rule! CONTINENTAL BREKKIE AT HOME
GOURMET RUSTIC PICNIC 1. Hire a wedding planner to really get your gourmet brunch the attention to detail it deserves. The Adventure School is available. 2. Take out from a favorite casual dining spot and a performer, for example; Paseo, every body will love this, have a flamenco guitarist strum along while you eat! Indian food in the park with saris spread on picnic tables or on the grass would be awesome! Hire an Indian Classical dancer to strut their stuff for a thrilled crowd as they drink bottomless chai! A performer can add an awesome surprise element for just a few hundred dollars. 3. Make a smorgasboard of desserts, it’s informal so everyone can share. Cupcakes from the new Cupcake Royale on Pike street on Capitol Hill brought to Volunteer Park for a casual post wedding brunch would be ideal! Get Top Pot donuts, bring vegan sorbet. Check out the new awesome Domestic Architecture designed Cupcake Royale. 4. Use whole foods, (not the store). Bring a knife and cutting board and cut hunks of cheese, bread, meat. Everybody can get down with great big hunks of food, you can let your hair down and place some petanque with a baguette in hand. 5. Bring jars or food tins (get some used food tins from local grocers or tea shops) and fill with local flowers from Pike Place Market. Extremely reasonably priced. Get a bunch of sweet pea blossoms for five dollars! If you feel like outsourcing hire Marigold and Mint to do a similar wild flower look for your wedding picnic! 6. Hire a bartender or barista! Seems extravagant, but will set an awesome tone to an informal brunch! No one should be without a drink! Ask your favorite local bartender to do it and get a $10 banquet permit from the liquor store, after all, it’s a private event in your own backyard. Fancy non-alcoholic drinks rule too! Caffe Vita has coffee carts ready and willing to come to your event. Cute! 7. Foraged and Found Edibles! Get them involved! You will have the wedding of the year! So Locavore it hurts! Back to the land young lovers and the loved ones who love them! Also, check out Christina Choi’s restaurant, Nettletown. 8. Make specialized brunch totes by ordering and monogramming Boat & Totes from LL Bean! Get them embroidered to say I Love You or The Jones or something else. (I think you can have up to 10 characters). FOOD CARTS So many great food carts right now in Seattle. Marination mobile, Maximus Minimus, skillet, Veraci pizza, Tako Truk and Rancho Bravo just to name a few. They add a huge dose of whimsy to any event. Personalize the experience by having them plate up the goods on containers in the theme. Have a circus experience with red and white stripes and checked items from Cash and Carry. Ask them to use mason jars for your down-home folksy shindig. Incorporate a band that compliments the mood of the food cart: slide guitarists with marination mobile. Add a cotton candy machine to the mix; have someone funny staff it. Go totally DIY and build a funny tent and serve your mom’s pies out of it. Go green with corn plastics or thrifted dishes, flatware and cups. BRUNCH IN A RESTAURANT A restaurant buy-out is intimate and shows you really care; an awesome option for foodies!
After almost a week of feeling under the weather and incapable of venturing out into the real world, there is literally nothing in my refrigerator save for three bottles of beer and a jar of unopened low-sodium pickles mistakenly purchased some months ago (yuck, please pass the salt). It wasn’t until this afternoon that I made myself eat one while waiting for the Mr. to come home from work with some matzo ball soup, my hands shaking with hunger as I removed the lid from the container. The pickle wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d anticipated it being, but in hindsight I wonder if it wasn’t just my tummy talking, eager for more. It did make me reminisce about the homemade pickles we packed last summer, however, and I’m now trying to figure out where in our storage unit our extra jars and boiling-water canner might be hiding. All I’m hearing in the land of Twitter these days are things about canning and pickling. People are getting excited about the new summer vegetables that are beginning to pop up in neighborhood farmer’s markets and are discussing ways to preserve them for the months to come. It’s pretty great. For those of you who might be scared of pickling, you should be. It’s pretty easy to end up with bowls of stinky, badly fermented (as opposed to perfectly, deliciously fermented) sauerkraut in your basement. Believe me, I’ve been there. While the secret of a solid ‘kraut is still anathema to me, I am darn good with the old fashioned, tried and true pickle pack, which is super easy to concoct. We loosely followed a recipe for pickling we found in the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving, adding our own touches as we pleased.
Mixed Pickles:
Combine sugar, salt, spices and vinegar in a saucepot and bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes. Assemble vegetables in hot, clean jars. Pour hot liquid into jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 15 minutes in a boiling-water canner. Keep in a cool, dry place for 3-5 weeks before opening. Yields about 5 pints.
The Adventure School threw a party last night at our new studio and it was OVER THE TOP. I’ll leave the juicy details out, as I’m sure one of my fellow Adventurers has something up his or her sleeves in terms of blogging about the fete, but I will say that the food that was served was beautiful, eclectic, and downright yummy. From Gao Gao’s sausage rolls, to Lindsay’s rainbow cake, to my homemade marshmallows, our guests were feasting throughout the evening.
In great appreciation of the partygoers who complimented my marshmallows, I am posting the recipe I used, taken from The River Cottage Family Cookbook by Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall & Fizz Carr. This book focuses on simple yet fun dishes that are perfect for kids’ (and, obviously, adults’!) experimentation with cooking. It gives in-depth descriptions of where staple foods come from, why they’re important in certain recipes, and what tweaking various techniques or measurements will do to the outcome of a dish. Fearnley-Whitingstall & Carr do a fabulous job, and, in fact, I would recommend every book in the River Cottage series Have fun! Homemade Marshmallows Kitchen Gear: Candy thermometer, medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, measuring cup, wooden spoon, standing mixer, measuring spoons, shallow baking pan (about 8 inches square), butter knife. Ingredients: Method: 1. Sift the confectioner’s sugar and the cornstarch together.
Heaven in your mouth!
In leafing through Lilly Joss Reich’s Viennese Pastry Cookbook, I found a c. 1970 recipe for creme-filled doughnuts. Not being a huge fan of having filling in my pastries, I was a little reticent about taking the time to make these, but, oh my goodness, am I glad I did. I just swapped out the creme for bits of chocolate, and even some currant jam.
The most important part of being an adventurer is the sustenance that keeps you going. While these little guys aren’t the best snack for pulling out of your pocket in the middle of a mountain trail, they are perfect for those times when reminiscing about the exciting journeys you once took or when planning your next great excursion. They are super fun to make, and though the recipe is a bit tricky, you will be so glad you stuck with it in the end. Be sure to serve them immediately, as they are at the peak of their yumminess when piping hot. Mmm!
Ingredients: 1/2 bar sweet butter, melted From the above ingredients, use the following to prepare the Yeast Sponge: While sponge is rising, stir soft butter and sugar together until creamy. Add egg yolks, lemon rind, and salt. Add several spoonfuls of flour and the yeast sponge. Beat well with a wooden spoon, adding the rum and gradually beating in the remaining flour. Add more flour if necessary, but try to keep dough on the soft side. Beat for about 10 minutes until satiny, shiny blisters form. Cover and let rise to more and double its bulk. Punch down dough. Beat a few strokes and let rise again for about 15 minutes. Yields 30 doughnuts.
The Mariani family purchased the then-decrepit piece of land three years ago, with the intent of restoring the century-old buildings and replanting indigenous vegetation, along with exploring the processes of winemaking (they use wild yeasts!). An abandoned hacienda, which they are planning on using for tasting rooms and an event space, sits above the vineyard rows, a single dirt road—flanked by tall palm trees—winds through the trellising to connect it to the main thoroughfare.
When we arrived, we found one of our hosts busy in the garden picking fava greens for a salad to be had alongside baked beans, local cheeses and salumi, and other varieties of vegetables grown on the property. Lunch was prepared by a handful of the fete’s attendees. Each of them added a bit of their own ingenuity to the dishes prepared, many of which came out of the gorgeous, handmade Nido Oven, and all of them paired with Scribe’s wine.
The result: a truly lovely afternoon comprised of good people and mouthwatering, locally sourced food enjoyed in a completely sublime setting. Keep up to date with the goings-on at Scribe Winery in their newsletter, or become a member of The Scribe Viticulture Society to receive shipments of their wine throughout the year. You can find more photos of our afternoon here.
This week’s Profile is a two-for-one! Meet the Mariani brothers of Scribe Winery in Sonoma, California: two magnetic young men who are hard at work, with the help of good friends, establishing their own little Eden within Northern California’s food and wine community. Keep an eye out for more on our visit there in our posting on Wednesday! You can also download Adam’s Adventure Profile here: Adventurer Profile: Adam Mariani.
Andrew’s Adventurer Profile: 1. What skill do you want to learn? Rap Skillz 2. Food & drink you can’t live without? Pinot Noir 3. Scariest thing you can think of? Furious ants 4. Favorite party supply? A farmer cum DJ 5. Favorite book at the moment? Blood Meridian 6. Dream party place? An abandoned hacienda 7. What is the evil version of you like? What is the good version of me like? 8. What gives you confidence? My beard 9. Four essentials of a good party? Girls, boys, wine, tunes 10. What do you appreciate most about a good party host? Good lighting 11. Favorite adventure supply? Sunglasses 12. Best party you’ve ever attended? Today’s party 13. Hotel room or campsite? A tipi, either inside or outside 14. Do you have a style icon? Emiliano Zapata 15. Where is your next adventure destination? The other side of Rogue Ridge 16. If you could teach a class about anything in the world, ever, what would you teach? Competitive falconry 17. What is your motto? Action is character 18. What is your spirit animal? A young wolf on the back of an eagle
Adam’s Adventurer Profile: 1. What skill do you want to learn? To be an Edomae chef. 2. Food and drink you WANT want to live without? All those things people mistakenly call “food”. And Robitussin cough syrup. 3. The scariest thing you can think of? The only thing left yo eat are all those ‘things’ people mistakenly call “food”, and Robitussin cough syrup. 4. Your favorite party supply? See answers 6 and 9. 5. Your favorite book at the moment? Liquid Memory by Jonathan Nossiter (especially its Introduction). This was a gift from my brother. 6. Describe your dream party place. Anywhere I can be the/a host. 7. What is the evil version of your like? When I cannot get anything accomplished that I want to get accomplished. 8. What gives your confidence? Not having a ‘big ego’, but having a ‘strong ego’. I like to think it’s the latter. 9. Name four essential elements of a good party. Scribe wine, Scribe Hacienda, Andrew Mariani, Art. [Adam inserted some great photos of these things, which you can see if you download his profile from the link above.] 10. What do you appreciate most about a good party host? They do not let any clean-up happen until everyone has left. 11. Favorite adventure supply? My Rhodesian Ridgeback, Señor. 12. Describe the best party you ever attended. Notorious BIG was rapping over the xx, it was a full moon and in Zanzibar. 13. Hotel room or campsite? This question is taking me too long to decide on… 14. Do you have a style icon? Emiliano Zapata Salazar (I hope my brother did not say him also, because I’m pretty sure I stole this answer from him.) 15. Where is your next adventure destination? Try to find my way onto the sailboat, Plastiki. 16. If you could teach a class about anything in the world, ever, what would you teach? About the immense value of eating good food and reading good books. 17. Your motto? Try to say ‘Yes’ often. 18. What is your spirit animal? The Fava Bean. It is incredibly easy to grow, itʼs beans are delicious, itʼs leaves are delicious, and it is very nutritious for the soil.
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